Dear Selection Committee,

Please accept the following essay as application for The Worst Parent of the Year Award. Though I had many examples and stories I could have submitted, I am aware that we are to choose just one and I am confident that this anecdote will leave you with no doubt in your minds that you should select me as this year’s “Worst Parent.” My application essay is as follows:

Everyone knows that long car trips with young children can be…stressful…at best. A successful road trip requires much careful and strategic planning, as well as specialized gear and a battery of toys, movies and music. For this reason, for most of our time as parents, we have been able to avoid road trips like the plague, opting for flying when possible or simply just staying home. Once our oldest turned two, however, and started costing adult fares to fly, we generally just stayed home. Once the second child came, at the same time that oil prices hit the roof, it was a no brainer.

But then, this past summer, we purchased a minivan. Suddenly we had the capacity for the gear, and the built-in entertainment equipment. It was only a matter of time until we were brave enough to attempt a road trip, and our path toward The Worst Parent of the Year Award would be set.

The inevitable road trip took place just this past week – a post-Christmas jaunt to visit family and friends in Utah. We came as prepared as possible for the 12 hour trip with bags of toys and games, snacks and drinks galore, music, and 12 movies for the built-in DVD player. We even planned to split the trip on the way to Utah into two days, stopping overnight in Boise to visit some friends. Because of this careful planning, our trip out went swimmingly well, which may cause you to want to disqualify us from winning the award. But please continue reading.

For the return trip, we had to drive the full distance in one day. We left a day later than intended, however, because I had gotten food poisoning the night before we were supposed to leave, and was in no condition to be much further away from a bathroom than a few feet, let alone trapped in a car for 12-15 hours, with rest areas only every 50 – 75 miles or so. But it was a short-lived illness, and by the next day we were good to go, and we packed up and headed out.

The trip started well, as the first one had, and we made good time back up to Boise where we stopped to have some lunch and let the kids run their wiggles out in a play land. With full tummies and their energy worked out, we figured we’d have an extra peaceful few hours, during the post-lunch naptime that was sure to ensue. And, like clockwork, the older one stuck on her headphones and watched a movie while the younger one drifted off to sleep almost immediately. I opened up the book that I was reading aloud to my husband, and we settled in for the duration.

How surprised we were when just 20 minutes down the road, the younger child awoke crying. Being just over one year of age, and having few other means of communication, crying is common for him. We ignored him, expecting him to drift back off to sleep momentarily. But pretty soon, the crying escalated. So we offered him some water, which he promptly threw to the floor and continued screaming. He was wiggling in his seat, and I thought he might have a poopy diaper, but I couldn’t smell anything, so we decided to continue ignoring him. He continued to scream, but just before we made the decision to pull into a rest area, he fell asleep. We passed the station, only to have him wake up again 20 minutes later. This pattern continued past a number of possible stops. My husband and I were getting highly annoyed by this point, as we were really into the book we were reading, and saw no reason why he shouldn’t be going to sleep and staying asleep. At one point, I believe I even voiced such frustrations out loud.

Finally, just as dusk overtook the car, he finally gave up the fight, and fell asleep. About this same time, our daughter noticed a strange smell in the car, which we attributed to the other cars around us on the road. But finally, the younger child was sleeping, so I did little to investigate the smell, grateful for the silence and the opportunity to read in peace.

A couple hours later, we decided it was time for a bathroom break and dinner, so we found a place to satisfy both needs and pulled over. Our youngest woke as we came to a stop and turned on the lights in the car. As both my husband and I looked back at him, he grinned up at us with a huge and messy smile. At first we were perplexed, wondering how he had gotten into such a messy snack that would be smeared all over his face and clothes. And then we realized it wasn’t smeared snack at all. No, the child had puked all over himself, the carseat and the car. And it quickly became apparent that it was the vomit we had smelled over two hours previously but to which we had failed to pay any attention. And the reason for his continued innability to sleep, to get comfortable, to relax and to stop crying also became instantly apparent… two hours too late. Nope, instead of comforting our poor nauseated toddler, just a day after I had wanted to die from a similar symptom, we had frustratedly complained, “Why can’t you just go to sleep?!”

So, as your committee can plainly see, we are most definitely deserving of your Worst Parent of the Year Award, for our unsympathetic and selfish behavior toward our poor, helpless and sick toddler. We look forward to hearing from you at your earliest convenience. All correspondence can be directed to our comments section below, and if you need any other examples of poor parenting, we would be happy to provide those as well. Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,
The Winters Parents

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 6th, 2009 at 5:39 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.